The present invention relates to a coupling structure for coupling a surface-mounted member and a rear surface-mounted member to front and rear surfaces of an instrument panel.
An instrument panel located at a front area of a vehicle compartment of a vehicle is known from, for example, Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 3-23891 which discloses xe2x80x9cMounting Structure for Safety Padxe2x80x9d. With such mounting structure, the instrument panel is comprised of an instrument panel body and a safety pad. The instrument panel body is unitarily formed of resin material. The safety pad takes the form of a two-layer structure composed of a basic layer made of resin and a decorative layer made of urethane foam. The safety pad has a plurality of tongue-shaped engaging segments which are separately located along a longitudinal direction of an edge portion at a side to be mounted onto the instrument panel body. Each of these tongue-shaped engaging segments has a protrusion which engages the instrument panel body.
In order to assemble the safety pad to the instrument panel body, initially, each of the plurality of tongue-shaped engaging segments of the safety pad is inserted to each of the plurality of mounting apertures formed in the instrument panel body, and the protrusions of the respective tongue-shaped engaging segments which have been inserted are rendered to engage opening edges (protruding segments formed on the instrument panel) which form the respective apertures to perform temporary fixing. Subsequently, the respective tongue-shaped engaging segments are bent downward to completely engage the protruding segments of the instrument panel body to allow the safety pad to be mounted to the instrument panel body. Thus, merely inserting the tongue-shaped engaging segments to the mounting apertures and subsequently bending the tongue-shaped engaging segments allow the safety pad to simply be mounted to the instrument panel body.
An air conditioning duct is assembled to a rear surface of the instrument panel, i.e. a surface facing an engine room. An example in which the air conditioning duct is assembled to the instrument panel is disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 11-321287 entitled xe2x80x9cAir Conditioning Duct and Method of Manufacturing and Mounting Air Conditioning Ductxe2x80x9d. According to the method for mounting such air conditioning duct, legs of the air conditioning duct are brought into abutting contact with the rear surface of the instrument panel and, then, the legs are vibration welded to the rear surface of the instrument panel, thereby assembling the air conditioning duct to the instrument panel.
However, in the related art practice, a step of assembling the safety pad to the instrument panel body and a step of assembling the air conditioning duct to the rear surface of the instrument panel are carried out in separate stages, respectively, resulting in an increase in the number of operations in work with an increased effort needed for assembling operations of the safety pad and the air conditioning duct.
Further, there is a need for the front wall of the instrument panel body to be prepared with a pad mounting area for mounting the safety pad and, in addition, the rear surface of the instrument panel body is required to be prepared with a duct mounting area for mounting the air conditioning duct.
However, since the pad mounting area and the duct mounting area need to be prepared in relatively narrow spaces of the instrument panel body, it is hard to sufficiently ensure the respective mounting areas. As a result, the freedom of design when designing these members is limited, with a resultant increase in the time required for design.
Thus, the presence of the increased effort required in assembling work and the need for the design to be carried out in a relatively longer time period disturb a reduction in manufacturing cost.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an instrument-panel/parts assembly which enables a reduction in an effort required in assembling operations while also enabling a reduction in a time period required for design.
According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an instrument panel and parts assembly, which comprises an instrument panel having a plurality of through-apertures, at least one surface-mounted member located on a front surface of the instrument panel, and at least one rear surface-mounted member located on a rear surface of the instrument panel, wherein the rear surface-mounted member has a plurality of coupling flaps projecting outwardly therefrom, and the instrument panel, the surface-mounted member and the coupling flaps of the rear surface-mounted member are coupled together by vibration welding via the through-apertures.
Forming the through-apertures in the instrument panel enables either one of the surface-mounted member and the rear surface-mounted member to be brought into abutting contact with the other member via the through-apertures. Coupling both members which have been held in abutting contact with one another enables the instrument panel to be caught between the surface-mounted member and the rear surface-mounted member to allow the surface-mounted member, the instrument panel and the rear surface-mounted member to be unitarily coupled with one another. Thus, since the surface-mounted member and the rear surface-mounted member can be simultaneously coupled with the instrument panel in a single operation step, it is possible to reduce an effort required for the assembling operations. Further, since the instrument panel is formed with the through-apertures, the instrument panel may have a simplified shape, resulting in an improvement in freedom of design of the instrument panel to shorten the time period required for the design.
The presence of the surface-mounted member and the rear surface-mounted member coupled to one another by vibration welding, for example, is preferable because mounting component parts such as rivets and screws can be dispensed with to reduce the number of component parts for thereby reducing the number of assembling steps when coupling the surface-mounted member and the rear surface-mounted member to one another to enable the surface-mounted member and th rear surface-mounted member to be simultaneously assembled to the instrument panel in a single step of op ration.
In a preferred form of the assembly, the surface-mounted member includes a plurality of temporary fixing claws and a plurality of coupling protrusions protruding from the surface-mounted member, with the surface-mounted member temporarily fixed to the instrument panel by compelling the temporary fixing claws to engage in the through-apertures while compelling the coupling protrusions to protrude through the instrument panel toward the rear surface thereof via the through-apertures to allow distal ends of the coupling protrusions to be coupled to the rear surface-mounted member, for example, by vibration welding. That is, the coupling protrusions of the surface mounted member pass through the through-apertures and are held in abutting engagement with the rear surface-mounted member, enabling the coupling protrusions to be coupled with the rear surface-mounted member. Further, compelling the temporary fixing claw of the surface-mounted member to engage in the associated through-aperture to be fixed thereto enables simple and temporary fixing of the surface-mounted member to the instrument panel. As a result, the coupling protrusion of the surface-mounted member can be easily coupled to the rear surface-mounted member without an increased effort.
Moreover, in the inventive assembly, the instrument panel may be provided on the rear surface with a plurality of convex segments and may be arranged such that, when coupling distal ends of the coupling protrusions and distal ends of the convex segments by vibration welding, the amount of protrusion of the coupling protrusions prior to welding is designed to be larger than the amount of protrusion of the convex segments prior to welding. That is, the presence of the protruding lengths of the coupling protrusions selected to be longer than those of the convex segments enables the distal ends of the coupling protrusions to be easily brought into abutting contact with the rear surface-mounted member, enabling simple coupling of the coupling protrusions with the rear surface-mounted member by vibration welding without an increased effort.